The latest college football polls are out and now it's time to rip them to shreds. Senior college basketball writer Gary Parrish has been calling out voters in the major hoops polls for thinking a little bit too far outside of the box when it comes to their AP ballots every week.
With the football season starting, I thought I'd steal take the baton on the idea from my colleague and keep all of the writers across the country who vote honest. I've come to know a good number of these people through time and twitter but relationships do not matter, bad votes do.
AP Poll Coaches Poll Harris Poll BCS
(Details of AP ballots courtesy of PollSpeak.com)
Poll reactions: ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC
Rodney Dangerfield "No respect" team of the week: Penn State
It took awhile but we're finally on board with the Nittany Lions. As my colleague Bruce Feldman asked, has any 8-1, Joe Paterno-coached team ever been this disrespected? Yes, the offense is pitiful outside of Silas Redd and they seem to enjoy tormenting the local media by never naming a starter. They're the leader in the, um, Leaders division and certainly have a chance at winning their last three games to get to the Big Ten title game. 10th is a little high (Jim Wogan, John Hunt) but 20th or below? Not right now.Overrated: Michigan State
Hard to pick just one team that is overrated this week, it seems like everybody below Oklahoma has serious issues (and Oregon/OU aren't great top 10 by any means). But Michigan State seems ripe at 15th in the AP poll and 16th in the Coaches poll. The loss to Notre Dame (31-13) doesn't look good at all in retrospect just as the Wisconsin win doesn't help all that much. They impressed in a win against Michigan but they only have three BCS wins and won by three in one and needed a hail mary in another.California Craziness
A trio of voters from California (CSN Bay Area/CBSSports.com's Ray Ratto, San Jose Mercury News' Jon Wilner, LA Daily News' Scott Wolf) are an interesting voting block. Some would call them progressive, others would call them extreme and just about everybody else will call them crazy given their fluctuations in their ballots each week. All three are consistently in Pollspeak's group of "extreme voters" so we'll highlight the most baffling decision(s) out of each.
It was really hard to pass on Wolf being in this space after he went on national television to defend his Boise State first place vote and failed miserably. But based on the ballot turned in, Wilner once again falls in the California Craziness section. 13th and 14th seem really high to rank Arizona State and USC, and all Auburn did this week was beat Ole Miss - are they really 17th ahead of Virginia Tech? Texas 19th, ahead of undefeated Houston at 25th (!) is highly questionable, as is Washington at 18th. Also, Georgia Tech and Penn State are unranked.What were you thinking? Chris Fowler, Idaho Statesman
Chris, Poll Attacks here, big fan of your work on GameDay and with tennis coverage. Here's the thing though, you can't rank USC 12th in the country after they lost to Stanford. You also can't rank the Trojans ahead of Arizona State, who beat them badly when they met earlier this year. Outside of that, the ballot looks pretty good. But still, USC 12th ahead of ASU? Come on man. Also probably a bit early to put in Ohio State.Also have to say shame on the Idaho Statesman this week. With Boise State on a bye, they furloughed beat writer Chadd Cripe. That in, itself, would earned them a mention in this space. BUT, they also prevented Cripe from voting in this week's AP poll because it would have constituted working. So not only do you force him to the couch (likely to watch plenty of football) without pay, but you prevent him from sending a simple email about who he thinks is a top 25 team. Love the paper's coverage of Broncos athletics but really? What are you thinking? Not sure why Desmond Conner of the Hartford Courant didn't turn in a vote either but hope he has a good excuse.
